Jennifer Lopez is a triple threat Latina entertainer, seeing success as dancer, singer and actress. Before she ever made her way on-screen, Lopez began her celebrity career as a dancer and soon decided that she wanted to pursue acting. Her first lead role came in 1997 as Selena Quintanilla-Pérez in the tragic biopic Selena, which was recently recreated as a Netflix series. Lopez went on to star in a number of roles before launching her singing career with her debut studio album On the 6, sending a surge of popularity through the Latin movement in America. While Lopez continued to balance her acting career with her musical pursuits, which ultimately earned her a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, her focus always returned to her true passion of acting.

While Lopez has dabbled in many genres from biopic to psychological horror, she has become known for her roles in rom-coms, carving a name for herself in the genre alongside tycoons like Julia Roberts. Despite major flops like Gigli, Lopez has seen a great deal of success in the rom-com genre with hits like Monster-in-Law and Maid in Manhattan. After many years away from the genre, Lopez has made a dazzling return to rom-coms, just in time for Valentine's Day, with Marry Me with her co-star Owen Wilson. She pulls out all stops in her rom-coms, and here’s why Jennifer Lopez is an important figure in rom-com history.

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She Brings Much-Needed Latina Representation

While Lopez’s career has spanned many decades, she has become the top-grossing Latina actress in Hollywood. Her presence has been key to improving Latina representation in Hollywood as most of the queens of rom-com like Meg Ryan, Drew Berrymore and Julia Roberts are all white, vastly over-representing the white community in cinema. Lopez provides every Latin person with the representation and agency they deserve. It gives Latina women a voice acknowledging their presence rather than rendering them invisible or giving them roles as side-characters. Indeed, Lopez brings her heritage into every role she plays as it is a part of her and should be a part of her characters too.

She is a Role Model for Women

While rom-coms have a focus on romance, the main characters are typically portrayed as looking for love, especially the women. By the roles she takes on, Lopez proves to be a role model for Latina women everywhere. Take, for example, her playing the part of a strong woman who wants more out of life than just romance in Second Act. This is contrary to many rom-com characters like Gigi in He’s Just Not That Into You whose focus is to find a man that will fulfill all her dreams, so she tries so hard that it turns many of her potential suitors away. Lopez’s characters, on the other hand, focus not on getting a partner, but on getting the most out of her life as a whole. In this way, Lopez acts as a role model for women everywhere as her role places an emphasis on focusing on personal goals and achievements like getting that promotion or bench-pressing 200lbs. Lopez’s portrayal of strong independent women on-screen acts as a great reminder to women of all ages that there is much more to life than getting married.

She Has a Personal Love for Rom-Coms

After starring in a long-line of rom-coms, you’d expect that they would get stale, but Lopez brings something new to each character and has become a huge name in rom-com history, like Meg Ryan and Julia Roberts. Lopez has a personal love for rom-coms, expressing her love for the films and explaining that while all endings of rom-coms are predictable, “it’s really about how interesting the journey is and the interaction between the two characters is.” This is part of the reason that she is the main producer on her new film Marry Me as she has a deep-connection with the film and considers it her “homecoming” as she revisits the genre after many years without starring in a rom-com. On top of Marry Me, Lopez has another rom-com set hit theaters in June 2022 called Shotgun Wedding.

Related: Best Jennifer Lopez Romantic Comedies, Ranked

She Shows That Love Has No Age Limit

In her newest film Marry Me, Lopez’ character Kat Valdez is set to get married to her fiancé until she discovers he is cheating. After a meltdown on stage, she decides to marry a stranger in the crowd. At the age of 52, Lopez proves that love has no age limit. Despite her age, she still refuses to settle for someone cheating. While we may see young people in the prime of their lives in most rom-coms, Marry Me is just one example of finding love later in life. Another example of this is Second Act, when a 40-something year-old woman unexpectedly finds love while moving forward in her career to achieve her personal goals. Love defies any age, it’s never too late to find a new love in your life. With Lopez taking on arguably the biggest rom-com of her career at the age of 52, she’s encouraging this concept of finding love later in life in Marry Me.